Administrator Name Change

Question

Greetings all. As a follow up, I am going to use the command prompt solution to change my administrator name to match my computer name in order to allow full control of my OS. That being said, is that the correct thing to do? 

When I set up the computer, I called it "TIMDESKTOP". I was simply following the example on screen. Little did I know that the name of the computer is the name to grant even the sole administrator full permission to access the computer. So when I go to User accounts, there is my email name I used for my account in Windows, tcn1962@g***.com, and that is the name of the sole administrator for the computer. The Name TIMDESKTOP is not there. 

So the question is, do I change the name of the computer to match my email address, or the solution would be to change the administrator name to match the computer name if it will let me do that. Does anyone know if it will? I also wonder if it will deny a request to change the computer name that will match the administrator name. It may not like that by default.

I just wish Windows could have had some sort of notice that explained this during setup, but it makes no reference of it. 

So if anyone has any feedback on this I would appreciate it very much.

TimNunn1

Answer 1

See your duplicated post here: 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-security/re-naming-your-computer/50f2600c-e5c6-46ff-8215-76b285d0406f

Answer 2

Why do you believe changing the administrator account name will give you "more control" of your PC?

The PC's name and the account name are two distinct objects. They do not need to match.

Answer 3

Thanks for getting back promptly

 As I said, I just turned up this new computer running Windows 10. I was running Windows 7 previously. This is my first experience with 10.

So as I am configuring this computer, at some point it was suggested, as an example, to use your email address which I did. As I said the email name is different than the name of the computer. For visualization the email is: ******@gmail.com. The computer name is TIMDESKTOP. Now as I was configuring file placement for my documents, I went to delete a file I no longer needed and a window pops up and informs me that I will need permission to delete the file. I simply clicked the OK field with the administrator icon beneath it, as I always did in 7 and yet another window pops up and again says I will need permission, specifically from TIMDESKTOP. So I then went to Control Panel to check User accounts and I of course am the only user and the Administrator.

So that's my dilemma. I need to change the appropriate setting(s)to grant myself complete control of the computer.

Thanks very much

Answer 4

Where do you get the idea that the computer name has anything to do with granting full access rights to a userid? Yes, the computer name is included in the rights, because Windows is designed for a networked environment. So, even on a single computer setup that is NOT networked, they still do include the computer name when defining a user ID. But computer name and userid are separate elements of the compound identity for a user.

For example. On a network you could have the same userid on multiple computers (ADMIN is the most likely example). But you don't want the admin of another computer to have access to your computer, so when specifying access rights you have to include the unique computer name along with the userid, ie:

computer1:Admin

This page goes into some of the gory detail about access rights:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/securi...

Answer 5

Thank you for that link. I understand now. I have been involved in networking environments all my life for voice, video and data. Colleges and Universities and such. However, we never assumed any obligation(s) past the main and/or intermediate distribution frames. Essentially to the routers and servers. Administration and IT Departments took it from there. Therefore I do have a little bit to learn I suppose with respect to computer configuration.

I thank you again for your help.